


Case: AO23 (Titan)

by SomethingBeyondReach



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Drugs, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Everybody Dies, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone is Dead, Gangs, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingBeyondReach/pseuds/SomethingBeyondReach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>World population spikes and global unification has caused mass expansion in most of all European countries. This, loose network expansion, has allowed mass amounts of criminal activity fly under radar, and amassing drug empires are forming throughout many of the fresh concrete faces in Europe. The CORPS agency, a shadowy international police force, has settled down in the heart of European expansion, located in Carcassonne, France. From here, we follow the lives of several officers, and their painful journeys intertwined with the criminal empire that owns the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Case: AO23 (Titan)

**Author's Note:**

> *-Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, currently in progress by both the-lord-of-the-lamps and myself(my-girlfriend-has-a-badonkadonk.) This is a prologue (I of IV), and regular (as in scheduled) updates will mostly not exist in our lifetime. Read at your own discretion.-*

The Boy...  
Prologue: I  
Current Day, September 5th, 2020  
Current Location: Carcassonne, France

The harsh lights from the city seep into my dimly lit bedroom of my not-so-luxurious loft via the long broken window to my left. The hum of my flat screen can barely be heard on the low volume it's set at over the hustle and bustle going on outside. I glance at the digital clock on the bedside table, its numbers reading 10:34PM and I grumble at the thought of being awake before midnight. I rub my eyes and look down my chest at the nest of hair laying on me. I gently stroke the fiery locks splayed across my chest receiving a soft purr in reply. Petra looks up at me, and her face shifts and she looks worried. It takes a few seconds but I realize I have a few cuts and bruises from a job the night before. She puts her head back down.

"It doesn't have to be like this, you know," she whispers, lightly touching one of my most recent injuries. It's almost completely healed, but I still flinch at the contact and she pulls her hand back, rolling over on our bed. "My father doesn't pay you what you deserve, and it's not safe. I don't like it," she mutters so that I have to strain to hear.

I wrap my arm loosely around her waist and try not to sound too stern when I ask, "What else am I supposed to do, Petra? Be a cop?" I snort slightly in rebuttal.

"You could stop working for my father, for starters," she tells me nonchalantly as if she doesn't know it isn't that easy. She rolls over to face me once again.

"If I do that, we'd have to leave Sina territory. I couldn't join one of the other gangs, they'd never allow that. They'd probably just think I were some mole. Petra, your father probably wouldn't even let you be with me," I say as gently as possible, stroking her arm for emphasis.

"Screw what my father says!" she half shouts, sitting up. She takes a breath to calm herself and dispute the argument she’s prepared in her head. "Heichou, I don't want this sort of life anymore. You could quit and just make an honest living in a corporate job, or something. All those giant skyscrapers being built uptown and you’re telling me they’re not looking for workers? I don't care if we have to leave, this place isn't exactly a castle itself. I just want you to be safe. I want to know that you're going to come home every night, unharmed," her wild eyes going soft as she looks up and down my bare chest, a few scars still red and fleshy.

I sit up myself and firmly grip her shoulders, my hard stare unfaltering as I say quietly, "Petra. I can't get a normal job. I've been in this business for too long, I'm in too deep.” She refuses to make eye contact, and I slide my hands down her shoulders and back onto her forearms. “I don't have any of those skills, and I can't just erase my history, I don't have the power or connections. They could dig a little further than just a normal background check, and you'd never see me again, or you’d be seeing me behind bars and glass. I don’t want put you through that. Plus, who do you think owns all those buildings? That isn't clean money being put into the concrete and rebar."

She trembles a bit and I can see tears starting to form in her honey eyes, and she looks down at the sheets beneath us. She opens her mouth a few times as if she had something to say, but instead she sniffles and takes a deep breath before looking up in my eyes again and shakily whispers, "But how could we ever build a family like this? If something were to happen to you, what would I do? I don't have a job, and I won't take any of my father's money. Heichou, I don't want to lose you. You could change, I know it. You're a better man than this." She's visibly shaking now, so I pull her into a tight embrace, rubbing her back to help soothe her.

"Petra, how many times have I told you not to worry about me?" I ask trying not to sound as irritated as I am, "I'll be fine, nothing will happen to me. I promise you won't have to live a day without me by your side. I’m good at what I do, and I’ll make a better life for you and I" She quietly sobs into my chest for a few moments before I hear my cellphone ringing on the bedside table. I sigh and release my grip on the now disgruntled woman, and get up off the bed to get my phone. I check the caller I.D. to see it's the exact person I didn't want to talk to right now.

"Your father," I say, not meeting Petra's eyes. I hear her scoot across the bed to get closer to me and pick up, "What do you need,” I ask irritated, even more so at the new nickname he’s insisted I call him, “Daddy?"

"Heichou, there's a car outside waiting for you. We're making a delivery. Morphine addict this time. Don't make me wait long, and try to drop the attitude," then the line cuts off. I sigh and look down at my phone before shoving it in my back pocket and grabbing the nearest shirt and pulling it on over my head.

"I have to go, your father needs me. I'll be back soon, I promise," I say, facing Petra who is still sitting on the bed.

"Be safe," she mumbles before leaning up for a quick kiss. I walk around to my side of the bed, grab the switchblade and lighter off the nightstand before exiting the bedroom and leaving the loft. I tuck both objects into my right-hand pocket and start off down the stairs and into the fluorescent limelight of the red-light district. The cool night air feels nice and I take a second to breath it in before diving into the sleek black sedan waiting for me. The front seats are occupied by Daddy himself and some goon whose face I strangely don't recognize, but is well built with muscle and has sleek blonde hair spiked up into a prickly mane.

"It won't be a long drive, he's one of our usuals over in the west slums. Crazy doctor with glasses and the key tattoo? He's been purchasing it less often, so I want you to be on your toes, understand? I won’t be upset if this is his last purchase," Daddy says in a deep, bellowing voice, eyeing me repeatedly in the rear view mirror. He sets off, taking a route I've been on countless times before. I merely grunt in response, eyeing the man in the passenger seat warily, but keep my mouth shut. If Daddy brought him with us on a run, he could probably be trusted, but the men he’s been working with have proven to be more violence-prone recently. The city lights and sounds grow fainter and fainter as we go further into the slums. Our symbol, a depiction of a dragon with the head of a beautiful woman, littering the streets in random spots. Finally, we reach an alley and Daddy stops the car. He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns around to face me. "Remember what I said," he warns as he hands me a Christmas box.

I climb out of the back and step forward; Daddy and the new guy watch the deal go down from inside the car. A man with long, brown hair and a mustache steps forward to greet me with an outreached hand; I pull the package back and realize he was only going for a handshake. I see injection marks all over his outreached arm, and see the discoloration caused by the skin hardening. He pulls his arm back shortly after, looking slightly insulted.

"Hello, Grisha. We have what you requested," I say politely, trying to save face from my early jump.

"Let me see it," Grisha says, his voice hoarse. He takes several steps towards me, and I open the box slightly allowing him to get a sneak of his product. Grisha's wild eyes shine behind the round glasses, and chuckles. He strokes the sides of the box and his grin is wide and crooked, "Yes" he lets out breathily. I keep my hand near the pocket with my blade in it, eyeing him carefully. Faster than you'd imagine a man his age and in his state could, he slams the box closed and starts sprinting like all of hell is loose behind him. I'm about to sprint after him, but I hear Daddy scream at me to get back into the car.

I dive back into my seat, and the car starts moving before I could even close the door. We speed after him, but the alleys are narrow and it's difficult to maneuver our way through them. The goon and I dive out of the car to follow him once we hit an ally much too thin, and break out into an open plaza. We catch sight of him just as he's opening the door to an apartment building. Daddy pulls the car out in front of the complex, and waits for us to approach the sedan.

"We'll never find him," I say glancing at Daddy, who has a face of fiery anger and slight disappointment resting on his round body.

"Just burn the place," he says sternly. I'm about to question him, but the look in his eyes tells me he won't settle for less. The other guy pops the trunk of the car and pulls out cans of gasoline and firebombs. The way he carries himself says business, and yet his eyes say he enjoys this part of the job. He starts lighting off firebombs and throwing them into the windows of apartments. Daddy goes to the main door, and slides a piece of rebar across the handles.

"You're a better man than this" Petra's words ring in my head, and I lean against a wall with our symbol spray painted on it and try not to watch this guy have a field day at destroying dozens of innocent peoples' lives just because one crazed addict got into their building.

This guy's throwing firebombs into windows and pouring gasoline all over the place like it's some kind of game. I pull the lighter out of my pocket that Petra had given me for my birthday, and try not to think of the look on her face before I left. My hands are shaking slightly, so it won't light properly, and I curse under my breath, as if that could drown out the screams coming from the building. Before I have time to light my cigarette, the goon snatches my lighter, and starts marching over to the building. I run after him, more than a little frustrated that he thinks he has right to my lighter. He flips the top back and drops it, and before I realized it was straight into a pool of gasoline, I dove for it. It ignites with my hand still in the oily liquid and I quickly grab it, unfortunately much too late for the souls still inside the building. I put the fire on my sleeve out quickly by wrapping it in my jacket, and hunch over in pain.

The goon jumps back into the car with Daddy, and they look over to me still on my knees trying to wrap my pinkie and ring finger on my left hand with a scrap of cloth I ripped off my shirt. I tuck my lighter into a pocket and stand up, but as I start walking towards the car they peel off at the sound of sirens. I take off for an alley, and as I cross the street I spin around one more time at the feeling of guilt chasing after me. I see a boy, maybe three years old eyeing me down from a second story apartment. I turn back to the alley and run.

I run as hard as I can, until the screams of the sirens are faint, and lean against a wall pulling my cigarettes out of my pocket, flinching at the sudden pain. I bring my hand up to inspect the burn and see "Your flame and bad habit, Lo--" across my palm, in the same font that was on my lighter. I sigh, and peek out the alley to get barring on where I’m at, and see the street marker I recognize as being uptown. I shake my head, trying to remember on how I managed to run several miles so fast. I go to step out of the alley and back into the city light, only to have grubby hands pull me back and throw me onto a wall.

"Give us your money, Shortie," the man holding me against the wall says in an all too aggressive tone, with two men on either side of him. His breath is atrocious, and I really don't want to put up with this.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any, and if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't give it to a couple of shitheads like you," I say between gritted teeth. The man doesn't like this and shoves me again, ordering the other two to search me. "Don't you touch me with those filthy hands, and what are you dumbasses thinking? Mugging uptown like a group of kids." I get my mockery out before they can take another step towards me. Though I may hate being a criminal, I hate people who are bad at being bad, worse.

"Yeah? And watchu gonnna do about it, runt? We fuckin’ run this block." He nods towards his left and throws a hand signal out towards my direction, which is apparently code for the other two to come get me. Each one goes for their respective arm, and I step back, and manage to slip my knife out of my pocket and rest it on the inside of my forearm without either realizing.

I wait for one of them to make another dive at me, and the one to my right did just that. I flip my blade out as he got with in arms reach, and bring it down into his collarbone. He falls to his knees screaming, and the left one makes his move. He grabs my wrapped fingers and squeezes, while trying to force my arm behind my back. I growl and grind my teeth together, rip the blade out and across the neck of the man it was previously sheathed in, abruptly ending his screams. I then throw my left shoulder back, and into the man gripping my fingers, knocking him off me and into a wall, then sink the blade into his chest. His blood pools onto the blade as his chest deflates with an audible sound as he slides down the wall I pressed him against. The third man never approached, but tripped over himself as I walk towards him. I kneel down and grab the side of his head, taking the tip of my blade and leaving a gash across his left cheek.

“Against my better judgment, you’re going to live. The nice scar this leaves now acts as one-time-use I.D. I ever see you doing something like this again, and you're dead.” I put it clean and simply, and he shakes violently even as I release his greasy face and begin to walk away. I start to walk and hear him sputtering and calling out his friends names before I hear him scuttle over to what I thought was going to be his dead friend. I suddenly feel a sharp pain in the back of my upper leg and I spin my torso around to see the final man laying on his side, holding onto the knife he put into my leg. I now act on my better judgment, and remove his knife, hand still gripping on firmly, and put it into his eye socket. I struggle to get back up, and tear off a strip of one of my attackers’ shirt to wrap around my thigh. 

I hobble my way over to the street once again, grunting and gripping my leg, burning off the rest of the energy I had getting down the street. I decide it’d be best to take a second to collect myself on the corner, and put my head back onto the cool, rough brick. I think about how pissed Petra is going to be when I get home, and start thinking about all the jobs listings from the last newspaper I had read. I grin silently to myself, but have my fantasy cut short by the sound of a gun being drawn from it’s holster. I look up, and see two men in pig suits, the street name for undercover cops in uptown garb, both slightly blurred with the city backdrop shining behind them. I look back down at my leg and see a pool of blood, and my skin a sickly pale. They pick me up roughly, and I laugh as my vision darkens.

“Sorry for bleeding on your sidewalk, officer,” I sloppily say as they throw me in the back of their cruiser, in which I promptly black out. 

I wake back up under the invasive light of fluorescent bulbs in hospital gown with my wrist chained to the bedframe, and I give it a harsh pull pull for good measure. I’m still somewhat hazed, but from the blurred corner of my vision I could make out a brown overcoat, laying over the frame of a man built every inch of his height. As my focus comes back into view and fights off the blurred edges, I notice his other details. Slicked back blonde hair edged out a finely shaved face. All of which sat on top of wide shoulders wearing a neat, off-white button up that peaked out from under the coat he was using as a blanket. A badge and a holster sat in uniform at his hip, with the butt of a .44 protruding from his black, nylon shoulder holster. The gun and the outfit were out of place, even for a pig-suit. The last thing I notice are his eyes, serious and piercing, now wide from what I expect was my rattling. He glares at me for a few moments while I pretend to be sleeping, before standing up and addressing me.

“I’m Agent Erwin, with the CORPS agency. My fellow officer and I found you in pretty bad shape. What was impressive, was just how bad of shape the three fellows in the alley were.” He throws his coat on and walks in flowing, rigid movements to a nightstand where he had a mug of what I assume was coffee waiting for him. I drop the sleeping act, but still refuse to talk to him. He drags a chair over to me, letting it screech on the ground revealing to me just how bad my head hurt.

“We know those gentlemen were muggers, recently becoming notorious in the area. What you did was a service, one not many men worth their salt could do.” He stops dragging his chair next to my bedside several feet away and next to the IV I had recently become aware I was hooked up to. “No, what I’m really curious about is how you got that nasty burn on your left hand. Looked pretty bad; they were talking about cutting your fingers off.” He nodded at my left hand, now wrapped in medical gauze and tightly taped. I gently move my fingers to see if they were in fact all still there, only to find that my pinky and ring finger could only move as one. I figure he knew about the fire a number of blocks away, and that my hand being cooked so badly made me look like a prime suspect. I drag my tongue down the length of my bottom lip, and bite down gently before talking.

“Wouldn’t ya’ know, one of those assholes tried to set me on fire after I refused to give him the money I didn't have on me.” I look at him and give him the most deeply sarcastic and innocent tone I could muster for show. I figure he knew there was a connection between the fire and I, or else he wouldn't be here, and that dragging this out was dragging out the fleeting taste of freedom I had left. He was grinning, but his look and the air amongst him was far from humorous. 

“All you Sina boys share the same damn flare for comedy, and shoulder tattoos. Unless that gang logo on your shoulder is a collectors hobby, in which case, you're missing quite a few.” He slides his hand onto the shoulder of my gown and pulls it down to just below the collarbone; the back of his knuckles are cold against the Sina tattoo that all the runners were required to have. “What’s even worse is the flare for violent intelligence you all seem to be developing. Those Sina ratways, the narrow alleys that have your logos so conveniently placed on them that also happen to be routes that don’t have any cameras placed along. Makes for good point-to-point drug routes, and even better escape acts.”

I’m starting to get nervous about just how much this guy knew, and fearful that he can sense the nervousness in my breath. It also occurs to me that I had never once heard of the CORPS agency. The way he eyes me down, and sits tense, yet so evenly collected. My palms grew moist, even though I’m freezing in the comfortless, medical air. I draw a breath too quick, and with my thoughts moving at a pace much faster than I can control, I thought he would surely pounce at my twitching. Instead, he sighed, grinned, and sat back.

“No, we know you were at the fire. Your ratways have been slowly traced out and wired to be watched. We saw the entire building go down, and it looks like you’ll be going down with it.”

“I’m not the one who firebombed it.” I hiss at him in an outburst.

“Doesn't matter to us,” he shrugs. “As long as someone gets it, then I get payed.” His tone was carefree, and seamless, but every word carried an undoubtable truth. I followed his sentence with one that no self-respecting criminal wants to mutter. 

“I want a lawyer.”

“No, you don’t. If I thought you’d go running off and making a case out of this, I would have let you die on the sidewalk. Just another statistic of local crime.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe and small bottle with a red, barely legible script. He fills the needle, and slowly slides his hand along one of my IV tubes. I reel back but find myself unable to get very far, and with my other hand tapped into little more than a soft hammer, removing the IV was impossible. “If you still want a lawyer, I can save local law enforcement a lot of time and just take you where you're going from here. I picked you because you're in between a rock and I, and you’ll find that I’m much more forgiving than a town stoning.”

“What do you want? What is the CORPS?” I spit out my questions quickly, beads of cold sweat form above my brow and my heart is racing. He must have disabled my heart monitor much earlier, as the sensor was still reading a normal pace. I swallow down a gulp of spit, and move my tongue, extremely affected by cotton mouth back-and-forth. 

“We’re forming a new anti-gang initiative in cooperation with local law enforcement. It just so happens we’re in need of Sina gang runner with a respect for the chain of command. You fell into my hands, and you fit perfectly into the job description. I’ll tell you now, you’ll lose your old life. I’ll give you a new name, a new job and training. The pay is shitty, but you’ll be a better man than whatever you call a job now, and we’ll make sure that once you run your course that you’ll be capable of supplying for whatever family you have.” He had put the needle away, and started talking to me in a new tone. He was sincere and charismatic, but what he says and who I’m hearing were separate things. Each word, I hear the echo of Petra’s voice, and realize that no matter how frightening this man was, he was giving me the option I told her was impossible. I focused back onto him and he was still talking, but I interrupt him mid-sentence.

“I’ll do it, but I need to see someone first.” 

I have given my answer, which seems to be irrefutably final. He grins and nods at me as he removes the IV out of my arm. He struts over to the closet and rips out my clothing I had been wearing, blood stain still prominent and all, and tosses them over to me. I put them on and he walks me out of the hospital and into the back of another sleek, black car. We sped off down town, and I found myself standing outside my apartment within minutes. 

The clothing I had on was sweat stained, and smelled heavily of gasoline. I wanted to go in, and apologize to Petra for being gone for what I had found was two days, and to change into new clothes. I knew it could take a lifetime to explain everything that was happening, but with Erwin and his partner waiting outside, I knew I couldn't take long. I prepared myself, then began the ascent up to the apartment. The door was already slightly ajar, and I pushed it open carefully, somewhat anxious to what I’d see inside.

The door lightly tapped the wall, and I entered to a dark and disappointing emptiness. I never received my barrage of questions, and there was no exasperated hug to greet me. I furrow my brow, and creep through my loft. I look down onto the concrete floor, and saw an oddly colored stain in the shape of the sole of a boot. I lean down, and drag my fingers across it and put my fingers up to my nose. I smelt gasoline and soot, and the realization dawned on me. After I didn't return, the goon and Daddy assumed I was dead or turncoat and took Petra away. I could feel the rush of anger through my chest, but it was dulled on the way out my throat, and I bit back behind my teeth. I ripped my clothes off, and replaced them with cleaner versions. I was about to make a quick stop in the bathroom when I saw a small piece of paper on the pillow. I walk over and pick it up, my muscles tense as I read:

“Father showed up in a panic and told me about how the deal went wrong and you went chasing after him. He said they found you lighting the building on fire, that you couldn't be stopped. Why?? I'm sorry if what I said earlier sparked this, but I can't see you as this monster you've become. Father is taking me back home, and if you’re alive to read this, don't come for me. I'm sorry.”

I just stared at the paper, unable to move, unable to really comprehend what I have just read. I breathily chant “no,” as I read over it a few more times, trying to feel what she felt through each pen stroke. I was doing all of this for her, and now she isn't even here, all because of the lies that her father had fed her. All of my emotion and confusion I had let build up began to boil over, and each word proves to be a separate catalyst. I rip the note in half and scatter the pieces while the words “Monster” and “Why” repeat themselves in place of what her voice had said to me earlier. 

I’ll show her that I’m not a monster. I’ll show her that I can change, and that I don’t need her around for me to be better. I don’t need her to be my conscious, and I don’t need to have her and her father over my shoulder to make a living. A tear rolls down my cheek that I couldn't hold back, and I quickly wipe it away before stepping into the bathroom and flicking on the light.

Immediately, I notice the empty box on the sink and stop walking. I slowly reach over to pick it up, my hand slightly trembling and turn it over to see it head previously held a pregnancy test inside. I crush the box and throw it aside before rattling through the makeup strewn across the counter and finding the stick, face down in the drain. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and just stare at the pink plus. My chanting of no turns into a quick lists of slurs as I pound the fist I was holding the test in, into the sink like it makes it any less real. I check my time and realize I’m running short and have no time to reflect on the monster I found waiting on my bed. I quickly piss and collect myself in the mirror, release my anger by throwing everything off the sink all around the bathroom and set off for the stairs. I hobble back outside into the car, and tell them to drive off. Erwin asks if I had given my goodbyes for now, and I grunt in return. I didn't know where we were going, but I want to be as far from that apartment and this city as possible.


End file.
